i marched on AE's guard last year and i know a lot of the people didn't come back for the '06 season. that was probably one of the biggest problems. there were about 10 people from my city who went there who aren't returning, a few from the states who i dont think were coming back (they joined because they were going to join strutters last summer but strutters went inactive so we were the next closest corps.) and there are a few (me included) who have moved on to div I corps. in general, it is hard for canadian marching activities to stay afloat because there is no media coverage of it up here. we dont have high school or college bands or corps, they're all extracurricular and almost no one knows they exist. in canada if you said 'i march in a drum corps' people either say 'whats a drum corps?' or 'oh, so you play the drums?'. its difficult to thrive when the populous is ignorant to what we are.